Bird's-Eye View
by chakramrain
Summary: Effy Stonem leads an unidentified crew of urban climbers from Bristol's Roundview, scaling heights with bare hands and no ropes or nets beneath. Her brother's descent to his death threw her to insanity. She sits atop a cable pylon, afraid to fall. Rival night-climbers travelling Britain arrive as two red-haired femme fatales taking skyscrapers and love interests. [NAOMILY & KEFFY]
1. Here Comes Trouble

There's a portion of Effy understanding that this cannot happen again. There's a trauma associated with sweaty palms and slippery fingers unable to hold someone's weight to herself as they took a loaded descent. And it cannot happen again. But then again Effy isn't in control of many things and she certainly has falling in love fully out of her hands. However, she wasn't in love when she lost a brother. She was attached and conjoined to his heart, tumour in his body. Had she been worthy? Had Tony's agreement to show her a fiery world up there, elsewhere, been worthy? Had he been so desperate to have someone beside him as he watched the sun setting or the fireworks erupt on Guy Fawkes? Had she been so terribly psychotic that she had relinquished all control on mental stability, the only thing allowing her a continual lifespan? She had then and as she watched the dark-haired and handsome sibling tumble off the edge she didn't feel sufficient sympathy or empathy. She did not, in fact, reach out again as she had told the police. She'd just discovered something new about her vast, tangled sea of self: Effy Stonem was and still is afraid of falling.

Before her brother took Stalin's Seven Sisters, Effy had been the girl on rooftops and building tree-houses, eventually evolving Tony's parkour across high-rise parking zones into a quest for pumping adrenaline. Two years after Tony's fateful demise, Effy sits atop St. Mary Redcliffe, knees hooked onto the steeple's apex and butt slightly hanging off the concrete-metallic structure as the infamous wall-scaling wild-child. She gives a big 'fuck-you' to the priests wagering hell on her head with her middle finger and places the cup of still-steaming coffee to her lips, warming herself in a freezing atmosphere. She's way too high up. After three minutes of contemplating the gloomy clouds above she braces herself for rigged lightning hits and begins her descent, void of harnesses, safety-belts or ropes.

"You didn't have the courtesy to invite ol' Cookie Monster, did you, now, Effy?" Cook slings an elbow round her neck and lightly throttles the girl until she turns to offer an all-Effy special available in the mornings when she's still hung-over.

Effy takes her seat in a mundane class and watches the radical teacher clap his plump hands together.

"Well then, welcome to politics and controversies of today that none of you really care about!" Kieran calls, "excellent to see you all shits again. Now, newspapers are great. You can roll them up and whack assholes. You can use them as toilet paper because you're just cheap. Or, you can flip a page and realise that the climbers are back in Bristol."

A blonde seated up front folds her arms and leans back slightly, throwing a perspicacious eye at a seating partner not far back. Effy settles herself in her seat, readying herself to discuss the issue with prompt realism and the appropriate morality as given. Cook only cheers.

"What do _you_ think, Jonah?"

"According to practiced psychologists the masked girl who did this merely did this for thrill and adrenaline rushes. However she did not expect that backlash from the British people concerned about reverence towards religion. It is simply a girl acting on teenage hormones."

The answer from the back bores almost half the class, but Naomi Campbell picks at her nails and begins to doodle on her paper with a pencil she's nicked from the boy on the right. Freddie plates up a slow clap, enforcing laughter and chaos for a bit until her raises both chiselled brows with first an apprehensive gaze and second an understanding nod towards Effy, who cannot be bothered with his insolence or appreciation.

"Well, that's correct," the teacher scratches at his unruly beard and continues, "and since no one else seems to have anything diplomatic to say we'll just write an essay on the event and how leaders of Britain should address the issue."

Naomi pipes up, "that's not very interesting at all."

"I don't think so either," Kieran shrugs, "but I'm no good at being a teacher and according to the book, teachers assign homework when there is nothing more fruitful to do and so we'll be writing essays. You can write in however you like."

Naomi gives affirmation, satisfied again with the teacher's response to his favoured and rebellious student.

A knock comes at the door and only at this does Effy's attention pivot towards something other than the blank board. Two redheads, carbon copies of each other, have arrived. The one in skimpier clothing has a leopard-print blouse revealing much cleavage and a rather salacious offering at her derriere. The other stands awkwardly, slightly shorter from the lack of agonising pumps tormenting her feet. She has straighter red hair that is of a louder dye and shifts in place, polka-dot skirt reaching the knees and cardigan covering her arms to her elbows.

"Ah, you are?"

"We're the transfers," Miss. Already-too-Loud states, strutting in as if she were on a runway.

"We transferred from a college in Portsmouth," the more subdued agent nods, walking in unceremoniously behind her sister; "We're Katie and Emily Fitch."

"And I'm Kieran, the man who already misplaced your documents. I'll find them again, I'm sure. Just take a seat somewhere; there are many since Politics is horrendously unpopular with the kiddos here," Kieran offers a warm smile, an uneasy slap on the knee and a rowdy wave to the seats.

Somewhere in a corner Cook whistles audibly at the first twin, who tips her chin upwards in blasé acknowledgement. Freddie shakes his head in blatant disapproval but takes into account the beauty encased in either twin's face. There are subtle differences in bodily features but clothing and gesture-wise they are world apart, never to collide, just as parallel lines never do.

Naomi appraises the first with annoyance and the second with careful enjoyment. Effy is merely amused, enraged senses already calmed from her monthly climb. She could leap from tree to tree as suggested by her mother through the greens of Bristol, but Effy would rather stake a kitten's heart to the door-handle. Thus at regular intervals when the insanity blooms and brims at Effy's skin, buildings, structures and things are scaled in the hope of letting the things more acrophobic than Effy is run, starting at the third storey to a centimetre from the top. Either way Effy runs vertical distances with inhumanly sure grips on every smooth or corrugated surface to take her to bat. And then she sits and waits and checks if the shit still churns within her. Up there it isn't quiet. The winds are loud and ruthlessly tearing at her eardrums and then she is unable to think. Perhaps she'll topple. Perhaps she'll lose her mind. But all that is wonderful; all the more closer to the end.

"I think she's mad," Katie remarks in the most intellectual way possible; Cook applauds in flattery.

"I'd like to do that someday," Emily motions with silent diffidence.

"Then you're mad."

"You must be the irritating twin," Naomi turns to smile in her sarcastic, caustic manner, already making new friends on the first day back from a break.

Katie Fitch mutters something quickly under her breath before spotting Effy Stonem with a smug smirk on behind her. She waves enthusiastically, quickly rearranging the hierarchy in the school. Effy Stonem is marked, Sharpie-pens scrawled on her desk on how Tony Stonem was the manipulative but affluent bastard who moved to London later to pursue better things, and Katie does her homework (selectively).

"Why is that, Ms. Fitch?" Kieran turns.

"I don't know."

"Great answer. Actually provides insight, though, into minds of today."

Emily decides she likes this teacher.

Naomi, beside her, nods in agreement, fully comprehending the working of the mind next to her. The bell saves all souls and the rabble rise to file out noisily. Effy picks up her sack of nothingness leisurely with her typical empty stroll.

"You went alone?" Freddie is immediately at her throat, not directly accusatorily but clearly judgingly underneath a friendly, courting face.

"Never thought you to be one to state the obvious," is Effy's monotonous reply.

"You're shitting me—"

Thankfully the loudhailer on the right cuts the conversation to an abrupt halt.

"You're Effy Stonem. See how it is, now? We're clearly the fittest birds in here; got to stick together, yeah?"

"Yeah," Effy smiles patronisingly.

"Bars tonight?"

"Hell yeah!" Cook butts his head into the talk and gives his hands a treat to Katie's buttocks as he smoothly slinks in, "we'll take the usual routes and celebrate Effy's successes!"

"Yes, to her successes," a sulky Freddie almost flips a table on its end, settling for a chair instead that gives a loud, humming clang in protest, "we'll celebrate."

Clearly maladjusted to taking social cues at large, Katie Fitch sees opportunity for pulling and readjusting herself into the ruling clique at college, already envisaging utilising the royal 'we'. She has a hand on her hip and sashays out, Emily following her afterwards. Naomi is seen pitiably shaking her head from the contemptible Frederick McClair to the blasé stance of Effy Stonem.

Pandora hits the hallways with a lollipop in hand and a fluffed bear in the other, skipping down the yellow brick-road with the sun on her back. Naomi Campbell almost sighs again, but stops herself as Pandora offers the piece of candy to her. She graciously takes the stick at the end and places it in her pocket. Delighted, Pandora then turns to Effy, who is ready to skip every other class and head for a lonely patch of grass to sink into.

"You made it, then. You could've asked me along to watch you. It's dangerous."

"I know," Effy says genuinely for once with Pandora as a weaker point of her, "I'll remember in the future."

"There won't be," Freddie lifts his head, "this month we have to lay back. Apparently a watcher group is making the rounds and this is when the European group of hustlers ride over to see the sights."

"They may be up for a challenge," Effy folds her arms, looking straight ahead at students moving from the bustling path.

"And you'll be up for death," Freddie mumbles in attempted nonchalance, "can't even get gloves on your fingers on a day below zero."

Naomi only expresses more indifference and then shows support for the idea of race-climbing. With the next quickest limbs she has less of a grip and more of agility, always taking the flag after Effy. Freddie has a practiced grip on everything and holds position of scouting the perils while Cook lumbers after, doing the turns, tricks and flips. Pandora is watchman with Thomas, who observes objectively once in a while without traitorous agenda or a wilful lack of acceptance.

"We could get out of town," Naomi suggests, "to avoid or to gain new ground."

"We're never on the ground," Cook says dully, catching up to the rest as he comes up, buttons undone, from the washrooms.

"My point exactly," Naomi says, "irony."

Cook doesn't understand it and doesn't try. Instead he asks about the group coming over to Bristol to stake new territory on that which was already claimed.

"How did you catch wind of the stuff?"

Freddie digs his elbow into the painted metal of a nearby locker and drags it open. A piece of pink paper is pulled from the place Cook never thinks to look, even as the owner of the portion of space. Between the index and third finger Freddie holds the sturdy card and thrusts it into Cook's line of fire.

"They're inviting us to watch, eh?"

"Tossers craving more adrenaline," Campbell calls.

"Spectatorship may be interesting," Effy makes the decision and turns on her heel towards the football field as the rest, more civilised, move to the next classroom about fifteen minutes late for Literature.

At seven in the evening the group gathers outside the church from the fourteen hundreds. Pandora has brought a picnic mat and swings about a basket full of food. Jonah Jeremiah Jones has arrived, much to Naomi's distaste, noting that good food is around but completely oblivious to the night's events that would slowly unfold.

"Sandwiches, rolls and grapes," Naomi lists, "where's the vodka?"

"My mother—"

"Alright, no." Naomi disallows the conversation from continuing.

"Ah, 's alright, we can stay sober for a bit," says Cook uncharacteristically in line.

They wait for half an hour. They get ready to leave. Freddie relaxes against a tree's roots as Effy has her head in the crook of his tan neck without other intentions. Cook guffaws loudly at everything he sees, including 'old farts' and birds alternating turns to roost upon the steeple's precipice.

The birds flock and fly away as the night deepens and creates a spectacular background of flares against black paint. In the distance pyromaniacs at the abandoned factories hit off a few whistling giants. Distracted as a whole, only Effy catches the figure dancing her way up the pole.

"There," she quietly commentates.

Naomi slips on tattered gloves with worn grips used from times of rough terrain. Getting leverage on the metal gate, her feet gingerly bounce off every edge possible, throwing aside a few shingles and almost ruining the coloured glass art, to keep up with the dainty climber.

"Female, too," Cook's mouth turns up a pinch, though the climber in the dark is largely bundled up.

"Disguise, maybe," the ever-submissive Thomas analyses.

Pandora only gasps at the display of bravado.

"I have you now," Naomi warns, feet only in socks and losing friction by the second.

As she slips, and arm swings out in her general direction and hoists her up by the coat. Two females grab each other by the waist at the peak that's just well for one and just swell for a pair's untimely deaths. Supported by the intruder, Naomi, blonde and completely free of inhibitions, plucks the stuffed beanie off the head of the climber and takes off the aviator goggles, admiring the adorable sense.

The button-nose is hard to miss, but coupled with the red hair flying breathlessly at such heights the girl is recognised and instantaneously identified.

"Emily Fitch."

"Campbell."

"I thought you were the fitter today," Naomi leans in for a kiss and right here Emily cannot exactly refuse.

"Are we in for twin-climbers, then?" Effy asks, doubtingly.


	2. Nothing at All

Torches hit the face and the aviator goggles are replaced in a hurry. Naomi takes the beanie for herself and, feet on a ledge circling a fatter end of the steeple, they let go to fall backwards, only gripping onto each other by their fingers and thus balanced so. Should the wind haphazardly yank them in either way, they'd both either have concussions or early graves. The blonde feels knuckles shaking in her hands and runs her thumbs over the opposing.

Emily Fitch feels her chapped lips still slightly moist from when Naomi Campbell swung her in for a quick kiss, nose-bridges pressing hard into each other.

"Get down!" someone calls, "I repeat, get down! The cops are on their way!"

The siren of the watchdog isn't for long, because first, Freddie's grabbed the middle-aged male by his collar and second, Cook has scrambled up by a pipe along the first three storeys of the building, noticing the girls haven't completely separated.

As the flashlights are oscillating as they are spun away from muscled vices, Thomas and Freddie subdue their invader, wrapping the man's arms around a tree and taking a spare grappling hook to pin the arms and lock it into fibrous thickness.

"Run," Thomas taps Pandora at the hip and she drags herself and JJ away, who is just about foaming at the mouth in shock.

Cook has a hand on Naomi's ankle and gives her a quick tug to pull her from her reverie. In a slip, Naomi's shoulder hits the steeple on a sharp descent, limbs quickly relocating balance and stability. Cat on the prowl she controls the velocity of the fall, headlong and pulling herself along by hands dug into every nook found.

In two minutes Naomi finds herself speechless and heaving upon the roof of the chapel, head flung onto an ascending tower. Her eyes are unfocused but she forces herself to regain concentration should she need to catch a red-haired female.

It turns out she does not, because as Effy watches in quiet splendour, Emily throws herself back upon the steeple, chest flat against it for dear life and then places her clothed palms upon the last bit of edge at the structure, winding herself up into a handstand. Upon the highest of the structures in Bristol Emily Fitch has gained higher ground. Satisfied with the achievement, she cannonballs off the thing and lands, pitter-pattering along where Naomi is, only stopping to kneel, check for equilibrium and then place her mouth to Naomi's frostbitten cheek.

"Autumn is cold here," Naomi says, softly, "but you didn't have to wear all that shit."

"Bad showmanship on our part," Freddie calls, also hurling a rock into a sounding wailer not far off from a dormant police vehicle, "but we've got her now. Message: our territory. Get off it."

"Aww, can't hurt to have a bit of fun, no?" Cook starts chortling, leaping off the roof and stumbling before upturning himself over the iron-wrought gates.

Effy only sighs, "worthy distraction."

Freddie turns.

"Let her go," Effy finally stands from her foetal position underneath the tree, stretching herself in the evening's blue dust and eyeing the perpetrator without much evil intent, "her sister climbed the new traders' building on the outskirts while we sat here like ducks."

Emily smiles, "can't help it now, can we?"

"Can't believe I _still_ want to take you home," Naomi mutters and takes a palm to her face to check for intoxication levels.

"We can still do that," Emily huffs, chuffed, and lets her bum slide off the roof, tumbling into the courtyard and then leaping for bounds as she kicks herself off to spin over the gate, hardly touching the metal.

Freddie has his arms up to his chest, slightly fazed by the new distraction and the warring states. He puts a thumb to his chin and considers going after the new girl to take her captive. He decides against it and then approaches Effy with another pair of furrowed brows.

"Careful in the future," Emily calls as she stuffs her hands in her pockets after throwing aside every other piece of crap she's gotten from the charity shop down the road, "we got the cops to the other side this time. This place is tightening security. Won't be a safe climb soon."

Naomi sits, slack-jawed, muttering curse-words beneath her lips and throwing her fists against any solid surface imaginable. She is the last to catapult her body off the roof and roll herself onto the grass. She places her fingers in the back-pockets and begins her routine of kicking at pebbles and speaking to the clouds above.

"Why would they call the cops to where the action is happening?" Thomas has a foot against the tree's trunk and another to soil, "it hardly makes sense."

"The thrill is wonderful and so is the mockery," Naomi exits in a more humane manner, by the gates and by land, "the climbers of Bristol don't catch the action and may just get the shame. Also, it sort of takes the cake when the cops stand and can do nothing. That is, assuming Katie Fitch got away with her little stunt."

Cook claps her on the back, "you're just puffed from not being first to get through to the roof this time."

"Damn right."

The choppers fly high above, searchlights going into every corner of cobwebs and every angle necessary. Speakers boom for the search of a young man who has thrown himself up the side of the unfinished trade-tower to hit the summit, have a soda and then drop with no ropes attached.

The wind speeds pick up and Thomas puts himself in the tree as the others file into Cook's vehicle, Naomi put off largely by the choppers and their deafening wings of metal. Effy is the only one riding shotgun and she lightly pushes her first knuckle into a button to flip on the radio, which repeats and blares the same message in a recorded tone.

"Not her sister, then?" Naomi's levelheadedness returns.

"Clearly," Effy whispers.

"A team, then," Freddie offers.

"Unlikely," Effy says again, "they came alone. We'd be alerted had they been ruffians renting an apartment."

"They called the cops to the other side?" Naomi repeats, "must have put in a call as a tip-off. Thrill-seekers, them."

Effy puts out the order, "we head down the usual route. I believe we'll meet Katie."

And as she says, where the wild things run and the sounds hint at possible spontaneous combustion, they find Katie Fitch blissfully unaware and holding herself to any man with a pulse. Freddie takes her from her trance and grabs her by the arms, interrogations already beginning.

"In hell?" Katie hears nothing of the sort.

The bodies gyrate. The beats swing and are dropped hard. The lights are too much for any epileptic. The drinks whack the floor and dangerous party-goers find the toilets for a quick fag or two. Cook weaves into the crowd. Naomi finds another redhead and heads towards her, the transformation beyond impressive. Effy taps Freddie on the elbow and takes Katie into her arms.

Hands at her hips, Effy is able to guide Katie Fitch in a masterful dance, steps correct and pace appropriate. Katie wonders why two females are waltzing in a heated environment such as this.

"Your sister arrived later," Effy places her lips to Katie's ear, "any idea why?"

"Errands," is the quick answer.

"You know nothing of the incidents tonight?"

Katie cannot answer as she is too far gone. Understanding levels of needed unconsciousness, Effy takes a guess at the number of drinks Katie's had for the night and thinks about stepping away in case of a throw-up. However she sets herself against it and settles for taking Katie through the instructions for a proper dance.

"You trying to pull?" Katie finally asks, "I'm not very gay."

"Neither am I."

Cook has found a shag and Freddie has found his steps back home, gloved hands taking every wall instead of the sidewalk. His knees are bristled, bruised and abrasions cover his arms by the time he gets to shelter and a place is to call 'home'. And he finds all things revolting in it, unable to throw darts at Effy Stonem's face either.

The blonde of the group has found her princess. She skates her way to where Emily is still sober and very much awake.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Emily Fitch raises a brow in a sultry manner, less of the subservient girl she'd been in the classroom.

"Depends what you're trying to get out of it."

Naomi puts two fingers up and calls for drinks anyway, taking her tequila without a lime. Emily accepts the martini and puts it to her lips before spinning. Naomi's waved her hand over the glass before Emily can take notice of the action.

"She knows nothing," Naomi gesticulates over at Katie Fitch, who has a head slung over Effy's shoulder.

"She doesn't."

"Will you be here permanently?"

"We never are."

Naomi gets in closer, "And by 'we' you mean?"

"Too much information for a night," Emily Fitch giggles, "and what in _fuck_ did you put in there?"

Naomi watches the contents of the glass swirl in a venomous light.

"Just enough to keep you with me for two days without getting onto any structure of mine."

Emily exhales loudly, "well, nothing I can do about that, now, is there?"


	3. Skin-Deep

The crew likes the underground quite a bit. If the heights are dizzying, the underground is steadying. Hands on rust, gloves on metal, the blonde takes her way through the tunnels easily, canals which are unused, unheated and unoccupied fully. The swamp of muck was cleared three years back and only the pipes of water are functional, gushing hot liquid towards the vicinity's showers and keeping certain ends of each canal dangerously scalding.

The Sleeping Beauty on the back is an occasional thing. Naomi walks, almost soundlessly, almost without a care in the world. She is expressionless, somehow even more so than Effy is half the time, and takes a slower pace, as if there were crowds stalled in front of her. Her face is aimless, eyes focused on nothing at all and her arms now hold a heavily inhaling young girl, head of shocking strawberry pressed into her collarbone. It's been a while since Naomi Campbell's had someone to look after.

Cheek to Emily's warm one, Naomi checks for sweating in the chilly air.

Emily Fitch stirs momentarily before plunging back into the abyss of tiredness and confusion from a certain number of pills and the powder in those plastic capsules.

"Drip, drip," Naomi says, pulling the sleeves of her collared Oxford shirt up, letting the tails hang loose, "what a pity."

"What do you plan on doing with her?"

The voice is slightly deep and not in the least bit uneducated.

"I'm not sure, Freddie," Naomi feels her voice come out monotonous, a mirror of Effy's once more, "and are we ever? Would it matter? I thought they'd be a fun bunch to rattle. I didn't expect to be gutted like this."

Her back carved into the concaving wall of grime and dirt, Naomi places fingers to her face to check if she's still there, good and whole. There's a large portion of her willing herself to stick her nails through her cheek, believing it's hollow or at least an optical illusion.

Freddie, hands bandaged in gauze from the reckless rumbling and exhaustive self-harm, appraises Emily again and doesn't like the look of her, this first day. He hasn't fully broken down the how and why of everything yet, though, and it bothers him to an extent that he must take a week off college and the usual façade of perfection.

"She speaks just like her."

"I can hardly remember Sophie," Freddie says in all honesty, with a hint of sympathy to his voice that he knows both Naomi and Effy dislike, and he hides away the undercurrent of bitterness harnessed in his biting tones, "and I'd much rather not."

No one wants to remember Sophie. No one wants to remember the crazed girlfriend of Tony Stonem, the girl who did short-distance climbing as a profession and had a crazy streak that was so very repulsive and then again so very addictive. And when she fell she crushed Tony beneath her, who fell next out of sorrow, crushing Effy next. No one wants to remember the first girl Naomi fell for, quite literally.

"Fall," Naomi says under her breath, "she told me to fall. I did. She caught me. I wanted to climb higher."

"You did," Freddie reminds her, "you did and then you fell again. And that time I don't think to fell into her arms."

The pulverising strength of Sophie's words was what sparked the insolence within Tony and Effy alike. Both brother and sister were the results of strategic mesmerising smiles. And Naomi's itching sadism stemmed from the times Sophie grabbed her by the chin, kissed her senseless and then left her to her own devices.

"This cannot happen again," the both say at once.

Emily wakes then, having her head pounding and throbbing all at once and blood rushing in and out at different and opposing speeds. The torrential waves from the weakened heart are tremors to an even more fragile soul. Emily is less than sober, looking gaunt and white.

"How long?"

"It's only four now," Naomi replies without malice, "need a ride home?"

Naomi slides down to her knees that also tremble and her teeth chatter, but she still removes her collared shirt to place more fabric over the chilled redhead. The other accepts the offering politely and they move in closer to each other until Naomi makes a dismissive comment about not wanting to return home.

"Perhaps we should head to my place," Emily proposes, "it wouldn't be nice to show up to class on my second day in the same clothes looking like a broken ragdoll."

"It wouldn't," Naomi agrees, "but you're about to hit the sack again in ten minutes, minimum. The strong dosage is to keep you in and out of your consciousness. It never fails."

Emily struggles to understand in the fog that once again clouds her vision and every other sense available at the time. She's already numbed, losing her nerves and returning the shirt to Naomi's shoulders. However, she squints just in time to ask a very important question.

"For fuck's sake, why?"

Naomi only lifts her shoulders.

Thomas and Pandora are once again the earliest to reach, in an empty classroom with two laptops and a few scraps of paper pulled from desks at random. Thomas's pencil hits the wood a few times before it is used to scribble a few words across the paper. Deeper searching is required and a page of binary is brought up to the screen, through various proxy servers. In a few mathematical guesses by provided theorems of gibberish on the board, the screen hits a green light and cloud-storage is knocked away.

Pandora hums a happy tune before sticking a piece of candy in Thomas's face. Thomas takes it whole and reinforces the research results achieved.

"What have we got there?" Cook calls, throwing his lumbered body into class, only to overturn a few chairs, "snooping away already before I've my hands and other parts over Katie Fitch?"

"Well," Pandora begins, "somewhat."

"The Fitches are extreme sportsmen, much to the disappointment of an uptight mother. Robert Fitch owns a gearing store," Thomas tacks the paper to Cook's puffed chest.

Cook scrunches his eyebrows into an intense expression as he hears the terminology encircling professional climbing and hiking.

"They're in town why?" Freddie arrives next, more courteously and by the door.

"Preparation for a trekking thing down south," Thomas says immediately, "and the daughters are promising in following their father's footsteps. However, most interesting is that the fourteen-year old son, James Fitch, is a physical-education prodigy."

'Google Images' has a few choice pictures of a grinning and obnoxious young teenager at the peak of a few hills and whatnot, along with medals in show-diving and so on and so forth. Emily Fitch smiles alongside Katie Fitch with a javelin in hand and a wound nylon rope in the other. Robert Fitch stands proudly beside the logo and corny slogan before his newly opened franchise, "don't get fit, get Fitched!'

"I'm certain only a few Fitches are responsible for the stunts," Freddie compromises, "the other twin has a skull too hollow to carry any weight."

Effy only pulls up a thin eyebrow before taking her seat, pulling out a textbook and making a big show of reading the text and studying the diagrams. Cook snorts, leaning over her shoulder and mouthing the words with exaggerated movements.

"Well, we'll find a time to climb. In the meantime, Emily's 'staying over' at Naomi's and Katie needs to be misinformed."

"Actually," Effy stands, "she's at my place."

"You drugged the girl?" Cook claps as a seal at an exhibition, "let's both get in there, then! Me first!"

"I'll put needles into your balls," Effy assures him, "she doesn't look too darned innocent to me. I'm keeping her. She has a fever and we're leaving her at the house. There."

And all would be right if Effy hadn't mentioned 'the house', because 'the house' is a euphemism for the place her mentally challenged mother stays and rots, even as a wealthy widow inheriting the largest estate in Bristol. 'My place' would encompass a tiny room of a rented apartment, rundown and dilapidated, and also Effy's. 'The house' constituted a guest of higher importance. And at this the atmosphere has been riled again.

"I'm sure Naomi's distraught enough as things are," Effy says in pretence of care, "leave her be with one twin and I'll have the other. Cook can go ahead to phone the parents to ensure they're having a lovely orientation camp at school."

"Great," Freddie calls, "great ideas."


End file.
